Without water, Boone residents still living in mobile homes

Wednesday

Jul 26, 2017 at 12:14 PMJul 27, 2017 at 5:38 AM

By Austin Cannon, Staff Writer acannon@amestrib.com

The small, orange rectangles are stapled near the doors on some of the trailers at the Green Meadows Mobile Home Park in Boone, but some of the remaining residents had evidently decided to rip them off.

“This building is considered unsafe for use or occupancy and is not to be rented, occupied, or used until released,” read the notice from the Boone city government.

The homes in the park at 332 W. Second St., are without running water, and at least one lacks both water and electricity. In an interview, Boone City Attorney Jim Robbins estimated three or four families are still living at the park, violating city ordinances.

“We are really concerned about people living in conditions where they don’t have running water,” he said Wednesday.

Because of the initial water shutoff back in April, a pair of Green Meadows residents are suing the park’s operator, Curtis Rees, and the city, saying the lack of water has made their mobile home “unsanitary and uninhabitable” and that they hadn’t received written notice that the water would be shut off.

The city denied those allegations in its response to the lawsuit but admitted it would have turned the park’s water back on if Rees paid what he owed in water bills. Robbins said Rees had become “sufficiently” delinquent on the water payments for the park, which he was responsible for, so the city cut the water off in late April, and Rees didn’t object.

Robbins said Rees sent notices to his residents early this year that he’d be closing the mobile home park on May 31, and in June, he again told residents that the park was closed. After originally shutting the water off in April, the city turned it back on to give people time to leave. When officials realized people were still living there last month, the city moved to shut the water off again, and a judge approved the motion on June 26, Robbins said.

In their lawsuit, Green Meadows residents Susan Samples and Chad Kirkpatrick, said water was included in their $290 monthly rent and that they hadn’t fallen behind on any payments. One of their neighbors, who asked to not be identified because of safety concerns involving a past relationship, said the same.

“(Rees) is not paying the water bill, so we are shut off,” the person said while standing outside Tuesday.

According to the lawsuit, Samples has reflex sympathetic dystrophy syndrome and febrile seizures, which require her to soak in a tub each day. The lack of notification put her health at risk, she alleged. Her and Kirkpatrick’s lawyer declined to comment on the case, which is scheduled for trial in April.

The Tribune was unable to contact Rees for this story. He’s still listed as one of the owners for Green Meadows and another mobile home park on West Mamie Eisenhower Avenue. Tuesday was a quiet afternoon at Green Meadows; some of the trailers were abandoned, but lights were on and air conditioning units hummed in some of the other homes.

Patty and Robert Webb live in the trailer that also doesn’t have working electricity. With high summertime temperatures, they have to eat outside because it’s too hot indoors. They’re forced to go to the bathroom in buckets, they said.

“We don’t know what we’re going to do,” Patty Webb said.

The neighbor who asked to remain anonymous said they discussed with Rees to move to his other property, but those discussions fell through and he reneged the offer. Their air conditioning still works, but there’s still no water.

“We hadn’t been looking for a place to live knowing this was closing down because he told us we were going to move down there. So we had no need to look, we already thought we had a place,” the neighbor said.

But one potential solution has emerged: A representative from RV Horizons saw previous news reports on the lawsuit and came to meet with the Green Meadows residents on Monday. At the meeting, residents filled out leasing applications for RV Horizon’s Boone properties as they enjoyed pizza and cases of bottled water.

In the meantime, though, some residents have no other place to go outside the mobile home park that backs up to some youth baseball fields.

Robert Webb said he and his wife received the notice that the park was closing earlier in the year, but said, “you can’t do it like that.

“You’ve got to have a county official get here and serve your damn papers … I am going to wait for that,” he said.

Robbins said that to his knowledge, Rees had been trying resolve his difference with residents like the Webbs, who claimed that the property owner didn’t want to pay for a new sewage system for the property. City officials will get an update on the park later this week and decide if further action is needed, Robbins said.